The day after NASA’S news release, the phone rang in my cubicle.
“David Stewart.”
“David, it’s Kelly Bradstreet at NASA.”
“Oh, um, hi Kelly, it’s David Stewart.”
“Yes, I know, you already said that.”
Damn.
“Yes, um, right. Sorry about that. I guess I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you directly,” I babbled.
“Well, I like to stay in touch with the people on the ground, who are doing the heavy lifting,” she commented. “Besides, without being too blunt, I sometimes find that Crawford Blake spins so much he’s at risk of screwing himself into the ground.”
“I understand, Kelly. And to make it easier for our clients, I often say my name twice, usually early in the conversation.”
“Good. Very helpful. Okay, so here’s the deal. You already know that I was able to get Landon Percival over this first hurdle. She’s made it into the training program. But there was a condition that we didn’t put in the news release.”
“Okay. What kind of condition?” I asked.
“Well, Landon does not exactly fit the typical astronaut stereotype.”
“Yes, I know being a Canadian does set her apart,” I interjected.
Kelly had the grace to chuckle.
“Right. In any event, the powers that be here at NASA have insisted that she be accompanied at all times by a handler of sorts. A minder who can look out for her, and keep her out of trouble from the time she arrives in Houston for the training to when the shuttle brings her back down, provided she passes the training in the first place.”
“Does Eugene get a handler, too?” I asked, a little irritated by NASA’S demand.
“Well, that’s the rub,” Kelly replied. “No. My bosses don’t think he needs one, and we don’t want any more people cluttering up the program than necessary, so he doesn’t get one.”
“The double-standard positioning may be difficult,” I said.
“Well, I’m hopeful that it won’t ever become public that Landon has an escort.”
“But if it does, perhaps we could just say that it’s always been standard procedure for all foreign nationals to be accompanied while participating in a NASA astronaut program,” I suggested.
“Hmmm. I like it,” Kelly replied. “That’ll be our key message if it ever comes up.”
“I’ll draft a few different versions for you to consider,” I offered.
“Well, write them as you would deliver them, because I’m about to call Crawford Blake and tell him I want you to be Landon Percival’s shadow for as long as she’s in the program. Her handler,” Kelly explained.
I said nothing, because I didn’t seem to be capable of human speech at that precise moment, which is often the case when one is flabbergasted.
“Well, you’re the logical choice. I’ve got your bio in front of me, and you’ve already had some contact with NASA when you were with the minister. And you’ve already established a relationship with the talented Dr. Percival. You’re a perfect fit.”
I finally found my tongue resting in my lower jaw, which I picked up off the floor.
“Wow, Kelly. Well, that would be very cool and I’d love to do it, but I doubt Crawford will go for it. Just between us, I don’t really think I’m his employee of the month right now after that little Vancouver Sun fiasco.”
“Are you kidding? If I were you, I’d start claiming responsibility for that story. It gave us great publicity and built more tension and anticipation into the announcement than we could ever have dreamed of. I thought it was brilliant.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Anyway, I have Crawford Blake in training right now, and I expect that pretty soon he’ll actually accept that I’m the client.”
“Oh. I see.”
“So keep all this under your hat. I just wanted to give you a quiet heads up that the client’s first choice to carry our geriatric astronaut’s luggage is you,” she said. “Am I thwarting any big plans you had for the next eight weeks or so?”
“Um, nope. Not that I know of. If my boss here is okay with it, I’m happy to chauffeur Landon on this adventure. If she agrees.”
“Oh, I think she’ll be fine with it.”
She hung up a few minutes later and I sat back in my chair. I didn’t know what to think. I refused to contemplate the idea that I might actually get to do this. I Googled the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where astronauts typically train, and started grazing through the pages. About half an hour later, my phone rang again. The caller ID told me it was TK D.C. Not good. I toyed with the idea of just letting it ring through to voice mail, but I was feeling a little more confident after my Kelly call.
“David Stewart.”
“I don’t really like you, Stewart. I haven’t from the start. And I haven’t yet figured out how you’ve managed to worm your way into the affections of our client, not to mention your colleagues in Toronto. I just don’t see it. I thought for a while that you might be a very accomplished swordsman and have been very busy. But I don’t think so. You don’t look the part. So it must be something else. But I’ll find out what it is. Don’t you worry.”
“Hi, Crawford,” I mumbled. “I’m not exactly sure how to respond to that. I’ve really just been trying to do my job.”
“Oh, you’ve been doing a job all right. And the client has bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
“I’m really not sure what you’re driving at …”
“Yeah, right. Well, pack your bags, buddy boy, you’re off to Houston with that grandmother girlfriend of yours. NASA wants you to babysit her for the duration. So have a good time. Diane can give you the gory details.”
“Okay …”
“I am so totally fucking against this, but our spaced-out client is insisting. And what do I care? When it all goes bad – and trust me, it will all go bad – you’ll be right there on the scene to wear it.”
“Well …”
“I’m not finished,” Crawford snapped, which was just fine by me. I had no idea how to respond to his tirade, anyway.
“Do you know what I do when I can’t talk a dumbass client out of doing something stupid?”
“Um, no. What?”
“I just grin and bill it.”
The line went dead before I could respond with some witty and incisive retort. Then again, I might have had to put him on hold for twenty minutes to come up with one. I hung up and noticed Diane’s assistant hovering outside my cubicle. He just pointed to me, then stabbed his thumb towards the corner office.
One week later, I was at Toronto’s Pearson airport, sitting in an Air Canada departure lounge waiting to board AC #235 to Houston. A steady stream of people flowed down the wide corridor towards my gate. It was about ten minutes before we were to board, when I heard the noise.
“Mr. Stewart! Yoohooo! Mr. Stewart!”
I can’t really describe the sound of her voice when she pushed it to full volume. It didn’t really sound like her normal talking voice amplified. Rather, when she cranked it up to 11, it was more like a howler monkey at full wail.
I finally saw her. She had eschewed the moving sidewalk as too slow and was burning up the marble floor with long strides and a determined look. The crowd parted in front of her in self-defence, or perhaps it was simple fear of the unknown. I’d have gotten out of her way, too, had she been barrelling down on me.
“Coming through. Sorry, plane to catch. Pardon me. Coming through!”
When I’d last seen her, she’d been dwarfed by a de Havilland Beaver. So standing there on her own, she now seemed physically bigger than I’d remembered her. I understood why when I got a look at her from the side. She was wearing a bright yellow rain poncho that didn’t quite cover the old green canvas backpack slung over her shoulders. From the front, the ensemble kind of made her look like a giant yellow pepper or perhaps the peanut M&M character.
When she finally broke free from the crowd, aided by how quickly the crowd was trying to break free from her, she rushed over to me, sporting a broad smile. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed all the air out of my lungs with a Hulk Hogan bear hug. It was a submission hold, and the pressure on my spine ricocheted the word “paraplegia” through my mind.
“Mr. Stewart!” she gushed, holding me out at arms’ length for just a second, before pulling me back in for a second bear hug. “You have made me happier than I think I’ve ever been. You did it. Your media manipulation turned the trick and flicked the switch.”
“Whoa, Landon! Always with the jokes!” I said in a loud voice for the sake of the hordes watching us. Then I leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Keep your voice down. And please, ‘media manipulation’ is a phrase that should never cross your lips again, or the closest you may come to the space shuttle is on a guided tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.”
I glanced around the departure lounge in case she’d been trailed by some photogs or vidcam shooters, which was a distinct possibility, given her newfound fame. But thankfully, everyone else seemed preoccupied with their own travel plans.
I pulled back to look at her. She nodded quickly with very wide eyes, her entire countenance exuding contrition.
“Sorry,” she hissed. “I’m still new at this.”
We both relaxed.
“It’s great to see you,” I said, genuinely pleased. “How was your flight?”
“Well, I really just wanted to get there, I’m just so tickled. But the flight was fine. It’s always a bit strange flying as a passenger in somebody else’s plane,” she replied. “But I have to say that the wings of my old baby are a lot more rigid than the ones on that Airbus.”
“That’s quite the carry-on bag you’re lugging around,” I observed. “I can’t wait to see what you checked.”
“I decided not to check my bag,” she replied. “This is the only one I’ve brought.”
“You certainly travel very light for an eight-week trip,” I said, trying not to think of the two large suitcases I’d already checked.
“Well, as I recall, the NASA folks make you wear their fancy astronaut jumpsuits from dawn to dusk anyway, so I only brought along a few changes of clothes.”
I helped her lower the backpack to the ground, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process.
“Is it an entirely chainmail wardrobe? This thing weighs a ton,” I complained. “Why didn’t you check this and save the strain on your back?”
“Check it? Not on your life. I’m carrying precious cargo in here. I don’t want Air Canada rerouting it to Kuala Lumpur by mistake,” she declared, patting the side of the backpack. She unlaced the top, reached in, and pulled out a magazine. “I decided to bring along my first twenty years of the Baker Street Journal for you, 1953 to ’73. I haven’t looked at them for years and thought you might like them.”
“No way! Landon! That’s amazing!” I shouted, completely forgetting our “keep your voice down” rule. “You lugged eighty issues of the BSJ all the way from Cigar Lake for me?”
“Well, you’ll need something to read while I’m studying and being poked and prodded and spun,” she commented. “I think you’re going to be bored silly.”
Diane had briefed me fully the week before. I was to be attached to Landon at the hip for the duration of the training and until the mission itself was over – that is, if she passed through the program and was cleared to fly. The only time we’d be apart would be during the shuttle mission itself. My job was simply to make sure Landon did nothing or said nothing to imperil the program or tarnish the NASA brand. This had required an unanticipated increase to the budget that TK shared with NASA. While I’d be with Landon every waking hour in the coming couple of months, we’d bill NASA for only five hours each day, which conveniently coincided with my daily billable target. So I’d spent an hour or so on my computer the night before I headed to the airport, pumping five-hour days into PROTTS so Amanda could invoice NASA even while I was gone.
Houston was hot. And I don’t mean the famous Texas “dry heat.” This was full-on humid hot. Every time I breathed, it was like inhaling the exhaust of one of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters while swimming in a pool of my own perspiration. We’d just walked out of the air-conditioned comfort of the airport into the blast furnace of just another day in Houston. I looked up and I saw, shimmering faintly like a mirage at the head of what seemed an endless line of taxis, a limo parked at the curb. A uniformed chauffeur held a sign that featured what looked like the NASA logo, but I was too far away to make out the name beneath it.
“That’s it,” said Landon, staring at the sign in the distance. “Percival.”
“You can read that from here?” I asked.
“Of course. Can’t you?”
I pulled my two wheeled suitcases towards the limo, losing ground with every step to Landon as she race-walked ahead, shouldering her backpack that weighed only slightly less than a standard refrigerator. When I caught up to her, I’d sweated off about five pounds and was delirious with dehydration. Landon seemed unaffected by the trek and the temperature. She grabbed and loaded my suitcases before the chauffeur could even put away his sign.
“Let’s go! We’re burning daylight.”
The Johnson Space Center is a sprawling complex with heavy security. We were granted entry courtesy of our passports and the close scrutiny of a beady-eyed marine at the gate. It felt like Checkpoint Charlie in the years before the Berlin wall came tumbling down. But we were in. Landon was like a schoolkid on her first field trip. She gawked out the windows of the limo and kept whacking my leg to point things out to me.
They gave us adjoining rooms, which I thought was taking my minder role a little too seriously. The rooms were quite nice, configured not unlike a high-end motel. There was a queen-sized bed, a spacious closet and dresser, a very nice flat-screen TV, a bar fridge, a desk, high-speed Wi-Fi, and a view of the next building. My newly acquired vintage Baker Street Journal copies were stacked precariously on my bedside table, ready for reading.
There was a knock on my door. When I opened it, in the corridor stood a teary-eyed Landon wearing NASA orange astronaut-in-training coveralls. Official patches for NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the upcoming mission itself were sewn over her heart. A Canadian flag and “Percival” in upper-case letters were embroidered on the left side. Clothes really do make a statement.
“There were five pairs of these in my closet,” she whispered, almost overcome with emotion. “It’s really happening. I can’t believe it’s really happening. I’ll never wear anything else again.”
“You look very much like an astronaut,” I said. “I only got this very official-looking lanyard. It won’t get me onto the shuttle, but I’m told it’ll get me everywhere else around here.”
She leaned in to eye the photo on my card.
“Why didn’t you at least smile?” she asked. “You look like you just robbed a train.”
A door opened farther down the hall, and out stepped Eugene Crank, decked out in his orange coveralls. I recognized him immediately from the photos I’d seen in the media coverage. Landon did too, and pulled herself together.
“Mr. Crank, I presume,” said Landon stepping towards him, her hand extended.
He looked our way, gave a little smile that seemed close to a smirk, shook his head, and walked over.
“Well, well, Mrs. Percival. I figured you’d be holding a news conference by now, to keep up with your clippings,” he said.
He reached down to her to shake her hand, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“I’ve never been married, actually, and I’d be quite happy never to see another reporter or photographer in my life,” Landon replied. “Congratulations on winning. I’m looking forward to sitting next to you for lift-off.”
He smirked again. It was definitely a smirk.
“Well, Ma’am, there’s a lot of sheep to shear before you’re on the launch pad. Good luck. I’ll see you at the news conference.”
He turned and walked away from us.
“Well, he seems nice enough,” Landon said when he was gone.
“You think so? I thought he was a bit of a jerk.”
Kelly Bradstreet ended up chairing the official news conference the following morning to introduce the two citizen astronauts. She’d told me in confidence that Scott Chandler, NASA’S head of astronaut training, was supposed to run the newser but had refused, calling the whole program a sideshow. It gave me a glimpse into what her life was like trying to drag the reluctant NASA old guard into the new millennium. Eugene Crank and Landon Percival sat alone at the blue-skirted table with the mission crest on the backdrop behind them. The room was filled to capacity with about fifty reporters, including twelve cameras perched on a bank of risers along the back. I stood at the rear, next to a CNN camera, and even got to meet fellow Canadian and famed CNN host Ali Velshi when he came back to chat with his vidcam shooter.
Kelly introduced herself and then walked the reporters through the Citizen Astronaut program and the goals that underpinned it. She reviewed how popular the program had been with Americans and Canadians, noting the impressive number of entries in each country. Then she introduced, first Eugene Crank, running through his bio, and then Landon Percival. Kelly joked that because Landon was somewhat older than Eugene, it would take her a little longer to get through her bio. Everyone chuckled except for Eugene. Finally Kelly made a big deal of reminding us all that the two contest winners would not be flying the shuttle unless and until they successfully passed the training program and were approved for launch. Both Eugene and Landon nodded.
Then it was time for each citizen astronaut to say a few words. My heart rate spiked until it became clear that Eugene Crank would go first. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and then leaned into the mike placed on the table in front of him. The vibrating paper in his hands, along with his stilted delivery, betrayed his anxiety.
“Good morning, everyone. My name is Eugene Crank and I’m from Wilkers, Texas, where, um, as the little lady already said, I’m a deputy sheriff. I truly believe I’m the right man to fly on the shuttle. I live with danger every day. I’ve been decorated for bravery on the job. I’m an outstanding athlete, and keep myself in tip-top physical condition. I can handle whatever the good folks at NASA can throw at me. This training is going to be very demanding, and I worry some about my elderly colleague beside me here. But even if there’s an empty seat next to me on launch day, I will be on that shuttle when it heads up to the space station in eight weeks. And I’m doing it for God and country. Thank you.”
He carefully folded his cheat sheet and returned it to his pocket, his hands still trembling a bit. Landon just stared at him for a few seconds before turning to face the horde of reporters. Eugene ignored her and looked straight ahead. She had no notes and appeared calm even after listening to Eugene. My heart started pounding again, and I was clenching every part of my body that could be clenched as Landon began to speak.
“Well, that was some opening, Mr. Crank. I certainly do appreciate your concern for me, misguided as it is. And I can report that these nice journalists, the rest of the world, and I are very excited to learn that you’re an outstanding athlete. Thank you for letting us in on that,” she opened with a smile to Eugene.
Some reporters smiled, others snickered, still others laughed out loud. None of them missed the shot across Eugene’s bow. His face clouded over but he managed a weak smile for the cameras as Landon continued, still turned towards him.
“I sincerely wish you well in the arduous training ahead and I truly hope we’re both on the shuttle when it launches. I should add I certainly hope we’re both on it when it lands, too.”
She paused like a pro until the laughter in the room subsided. Next to her, Eugene looked liked he’d just started a drug-free colonoscopy.
“My decision to enter this contest and my boundless gratitude to NASA for this opportunity are driven by the very simple fact that I have always been more at home above the Earth than on it. As Ms. Bradstreet kindly outlined already, I’ve been flying the mountains and lakes of northern B.C. for fifty-seven years. I’ve been a physician for forty-five years. Looking at me, I know it’s hard for all of you to accept that I’m actually seventy-one – I can scarcely believe it myself – but I know it to be the truth. I freely admit I’m not happy about my age, so I just don’t dwell on it much. I’ve wanted to travel to space for, well, for a very, very long time. I remember my father and I would lie on our dock on Cigar Lake, British Columbia, and look up into the night sky. I just wanted to be up there among the stars, the moon, the planets, and everything else that inhabits the world beyond our own. I applied to become one of Canada’s first astronauts when that door opened back in 1983. But I didn’t make the cut. Now, nearly thirty years later, fate has given me another shot. So, here I am, for my father, for anyone in the world who feels that age has cheated them out of a dream, and I’m here for me. I’m grateful for the chance that has been given me, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
Landon sat back from the microphone. I’d like to say that I coached her through that perfectly balanced and beautifully delivered statement, that we’d rehearsed it together until it rang true with the intended power. But alas, I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. I’d tried to offer her direction on what she ought to say. I even provided her with draft talking points so that we might get out of the gate smoothly. I gave her some unsolicited tips on public speaking and how to deal with tough questions from reporters. She thanked me, smiling, but rather firmly told me she had it well in hand and that I was not to worry.
Not to worry? Sure. No problem. I proceeded to worry so much I’d barely slept that night. But I did learn all I ever wanted to know about acne on an overnight infomercial marathon. I lay there analyzing why I was so anxious. I decided I just didn’t want to give Crawford Blake the satisfaction of watching the wheels fall off on our very first day. I wanted to get through at least a week or so before we had to wave the white flag. So you can imagine how surprised I was when Landon spoke with such simple eloquence, passion, and even a little emotion. To put it kindly, she’d blown Eugene Crank and his self-centred soliloquy right out of the water.
While the reporters were clearly impressed, they didn’t let the silence after Landon finished hang for too long. Kelly stayed at the podium to field the questions and maintain some kind of order in the proceedings. Landon looked serene. Eugene towered over her, even when seated. He looked relieved now, as if the doctor had finally pulled out the scope. The reporters’ questions were, for the most part, predictable, run-of-the-mill queries, including the vacuous classics “How do you feel?” and “Are you excited?”
Kelly answered the more technical questions about the program itself and the rules governing it, but referred most questions to Eugene and Landon. When the news conference seemed to be winding down, Kelly called for a last question to keep us on schedule. Always beware of the last question.
“Phillip Lundrigan from The Family Word,” said the middle-aged, balding, average-looking guy towards the back. “Question for Landon Percival.”
I’d taken a quick look at the media sign-in sheet but had not remembered a reporter from The Family Word listed. This publication had become a popular vehicle for the Christian right in the U.S. I had no idea why they might be interested in the Citizen Astronaut program unless it was to suggest that a woman’s place was in the kitchen, provided that kitchen was not orbiting the Earth.
“I was doing some online research in preparation for this news conference, and I stumbled upon a photograph of you, purportedly from 1968. It’s a shot of you holding hands with another woman. No big deal, right? But the caption on the photo, which incidentally is posted on a public Facebook page, reads:
‘My amazing Aunt Samantha and her partner, Auntie
Landon, quietly leading the sexual revolution back in 1968.’
“Dr. Percival, my question is a simple one. Are you a lesbian? Is that your sexual choice in life?”
There was much murmuring and sharp inhalations from the other reporters.
“Hey!” somebody shouted from the back. Wait, I recognized that voice. Okay, it seemed that I had just shouted “Hey!” from the back.
Luckily, Kelly leapt in from the podium before I had time to finish the sentence I had started on pure instinct and anger.
“Mr. Lundrigan, I’m going to rule that question out of order …”
“Ms. Bradstreet, it’s fine,” said Landon over the din. “This was bound to emerge. I almost raised it myself, but when Mr. Crank didn’t comment on his sexuality, I decided not to comment on my own. But let me respond – I hope only once – to this extraordinarily invasive question so that we don’t have to deal with it again.”
Kelly paused, unsure of how to proceed. Eventually, she waved her hand to cede the floor to Landon.
“Mr. Lundrigan. First of all, whether or not I am a lesbian is none of your business or anyone else’s and certainly has no bearing on my ability to fulfil my obligations as a citizen astronaut. Secondly, yes, I am a lesbian and have been since I was born. And thirdly, please do not ever again refer to it as any kind of a ‘choice.’ Your words reveal a profound ignorance of human sexuality. Do you have any other questions?”
“My understanding of human sexuality is not on trial here,” Lundrigan sputtered. “If, as you say, your own sexuality is no one else’s business, why did you just confess to being a lesbian?”
“As Ronald Reagan once said to great effect, ‘There you go again,’ ” started Landon. “ ‘Confess’ is your word, not mine. I merely stated that I am a lesbian in the same way as you might state that you are balding, for neither of us has control over these two realities. As for why I announced this in a news conference rather than keeping it to myself, which is everyone’s right, well, I just didn’t want to be spending the next two months dealing with it. I’m a physician. I’ve always been inclined to lance the boil rather than wait and watch it fester.”
“A final supplementary, if I may,” Lundigran said, pushing his luck with Kelly. “Are you a Christian?”
“I’m more of a humanist, but some of my best friends are Christians,” quipped Landon. “I do think there’s plenty to commend in the Good Book, and I even have a look at it now and then. But I’ve always believed you should be judged on what you do in life, and not what you read.”
Another reporter piped up just before the curtain was to fall.
“Connie Cranston, MSNBC. Mr. Crank, how do you feel about the possibility of flying in space with a lesbian?”
Relieved that his colonoscopy was over, Eugene had been looking more relaxed, at least until the Lundrigan question. Now he looked like he’d just been presented with the hospital’s bill for the procedure. He seemed to be trying to create as much space as possible between Landon and him while remaining seated in his chair. So he actually appeared to be leaning away from her at the table.
“Well, I’m a good Christian boy with a nineteen-year marriage to my high school sweetheart. As far as I’m concerned, anything other than love between a man and woman is what my preacher calls an abomination of the Bible’s teachings. So I guess I’m not thrilled about all this, but I aim to be on that shuttle when it lifts off, with or without her.”
“Although, given how much time we’ll be spending together, Mr. Crank, I imagine your wife might be quite relieved to hear that I bat for the other team,” interjected Landon with a smile.
The rest of the day had been spent doing a series of taped interviews from a smaller satellite media studio at the Johnson Space Center. Because of the number of interview requests, Kelly had wisely split up Landon and Eugene so they were not appearing together on talk shows, although that might have been interesting. I was there for every one of her twelve interviews that afternoon. For a couple of the early ones, she was joined by the mission commander, Lee Hainsworth, who had zipped over from the Kennedy Space Center for two days of briefings before returning to Florida. All of the interviews were double-enders, meaning that she was usually alone in the studio, staring into a camera and using an earpiece so she could hear the questions. The talk show hosts were all on their own sets with Landon appearing on a TV monitor. I was exhausted just watching the interviews from the control room but Landon was energized, gracious, articulate, and animated for every one of them. It was an impressive performance.
I was the only TK person on site, so as we’d agreed, I stayed in touch with Amanda throughout the day, and she kept Diane and Crawford in the loop. I was quite sure that Crawford had gone from apoplectic to homicidal as he watched the news conference unravel. I was quite happy to be half a country away from him.
We didn’t see Eugene for the rest of the day, and neither of us was unhappy about that. After a late dinner that Landon and I ate on our own in the dining room down the hall from our rooms, I suggested we watch the media coverage together to see how the story was playing. Landon declined, saying she was “hitting the sack.”
The coverage went pretty well as I expected it would. Most TV networks led with the Lundrigan question and Landon’s pitch-perfect response. Other than airing Eugene’s homophobic reaction, it was really the Landon Percival show. Under the circumstances, the media play wasn’t too bad for us, though I decided not to watch any Fox News coverage. I figured I’d soon be hearing from Crawford and was a little surprised he hadn’t called already.
I shut down the TV and fired up my laptop. I went straight to Facebook and typed in “Landon Percival” in the search bar. I couldn’t understand how I’d missed the photo that jackass Lundrigan had found. I’d scoured the web for any and all references to Landon Percival and come up with precious little. I’d tried Googling “Landon” but had been inundated with images of Michael Landon from Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie. After scrolling through fifteen pages of images of him, I’d given up. The Facebook search engine had nothing for me. Then I remembered Lundrigan’s words from the caption, “Auntie Landon.” I pumped that into the search engine and was rewarded. It was the Facebook page of a niece of Samantha Sharpe. The photo was as Lundrigan had described. A much younger Landon Percival was holding hands with another young woman, obviously Samantha Sharpe. The shot seemed very familiar and I suddenly realized why. I immediately emailed Sarah Nesbitt.
Hi Sarah,
I discovered today that you had used a Facebook photo of Landon in the Sun story but had cropped out the other woman in the shot when you ran it. I assume you knew from the photo that Landon is a lesbian. I’m just curious why you chose to crop the photo and make no reference to what has become big news today. I very much appreciate what you did, but I’m still left with my curiosity.
Regards,
David
I hit Send and then went back to Google. I wanted to learn more about Eugene Crank now that it appeared he was a bit of a troublemaker. I started with a Google Image search, being careful to run his name in quotation marks. I didn’t want every photo of every Eugene on the planet, just those of Eugene Crank. Because of his rather unusual name, I figured it wouldn’t take me long. I was right. There were a couple of group shots from a recent Texas law-enforcement conference, and a headshot of him in full uniform from the Wilkers Sheriff’s Office website. There was a family shot of him and his wife from a few years ago on what must be his church’s website. And then I found a photo of a baseball team, the players looking ecstatic with a large trophy on the field in front of them. The caption listed the players, including Eugene, under the heading “Mississippi High School State Champions.” That rang a bell. I scanned the players’ list in the caption again, and then confirmed it by looking at the player standing right next to Eugene Crank. Unbelievable audacity.
On a whim, I snagged a screen capture of the team photo and emailed it to Amanda with the Subject line: Just between you and me.
I checked my BlackBerry just before turning out my light and saw that Sarah Nesbitt had responded.
To: David Stewart
From: Sarah Nesbitt
Subject: Re: Photo of Landon Percival
David,
You asked me why? Well, when I found the photo, don’t think I wasn’t sorely tempted. My journalistic instincts told me to run with it. But I’ve always believed that going public about one’s sexuality should be the singular choice of the person, and no one else. Besides, I bounced it off my significant other of 15 years, and she thought I should crop the shot, too.
Talk to you soon …
Sarah